Steven Gerrard: Google autocomplete finishes off The Sun’s work
The Sun decided last week to run a story about the false rumours circulating about Steven Gerrard:
SEX slurs claiming England's World Cup hopes were undermined by a player's fling with a teenage girl are a sick HOAX, The Sun can reveal.
Thousands of fans have received texts and emails saying captain Steven Gerrard had got wife Alex Curran's 16-year-old sister pregnant.
But the lies are blown apart by one crucial fact - model Alex, 27, does not even HAVE a sister.
(I love the justification here for running a story about a rumour: people are receiving texts and emails. Makes it sound link some sort of conspiracy as opposed to people just emailing their friends ...)
Anyway, I don't know what Gerrard's lawyers made of this story but they might want to have a word with Google. If you get as far as typing Steven Gerrard into Google News, the auto complete function throws up this list ...
Google's autocomplete for "Steven Gerrard"
Unlike the Sun's story, the list isn't peppered with provisos that none of this is true.
Yeah I wholeheartedly recommend Gerrard gets m'learned friends out on the case for an apology and some compo which he so sorely needs! It's only months of work, coupled with the fact the rumour ends up much more known about and proliferate than a urine-poor gutter press gossip column and Google's computer if he just walked on by.
Ever considered relocating to the States? Lawsuit speculation is much more in ubiquitous in the rags and blogs across the pond Malcolm. Shame the libel laws aren't quite as insane over there though...stuff like this probably wouldn't get far.
- Pete